South Africa

In July, MSF opened the Kgomotso care centre to provide emergency medical and psychosocial care to victims of sexual violence in Rustenburg, a large town in the ‘Platinum Belt’ mining area of South Africa.

In Rustenburg, one in three women reports having been raped at some point in their life. Since the project opened, MSF health promotion teams have spoken to over 25,000 adults and high school students about sexual and gender-based violence. MSF aims to use this project as a model for providing comprehensive care for victims of sexual violence in South Africa, and to advocate for a primary care-level response run by nurses and psychologists instead of a centralised physician-led service. Raising public awareness and encouraging women to break their silence is also extremely important, as the preliminary results of an MSF survey show that up to 30 per cent of women do not seek medical care after a sexual assault.

Emergency intervention in Durban

In April, an emergency team from our Eshowe project responded to an outbreak of xenophobic violence in the coastal city of Durban. Over 7,000 migrants, mainly Malawians, Zimbabweans, Mozambicans, Congolese and Burundians, fled and sought refuge in three hastily erected displacement camps. MSF provided medical care, psychosocial counselling, water and sanitation logistics, and helped coordinate the response with other organisations like the International Committee of the Red Cross and UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.